Municipal ID Panel – Hosted by the ACLU-NC Charlotte Chapter
 Join the ACLU NC’s Charlotte Chapter for a panel discussion on Municipal IDs on Sunday, October 4th from 7-8:45 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte located at 234 North Sharon Amity Road, Charlotte, North Carolina 28211.

TOPICS WILL INCLUDE: Public Safety, Municipal IDs from the Perspective of a Card Holder, Planning and Implementing a Municipal ID, Legal/Civil Rights Issues Related to the Municipal ID, & the Benefits of Municipal ID Related to Business/Banking

Sponsored by: ACLU of North Carolina, American Friends Service Committee, Greenpeace, NAACP, Latin American Coalition, Charlotte Immigrant Solidarity Committee, and ActionNC
 Facebook event can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/events/1030915120287286/

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The Charlotte School of Law is sponsoring a Social Impact Fair to educate the residents of Charlotte and surrounding communities about the work the School’s Experiential Education Department does—and that its nonprofit organization partners do–to meet the needs of local underserved populations. If you are a CSL graduate who served the community in one of its many public service programs, were a client served by CSL, are involved in a local nonprofit, or are an individual interested in learning about CSL and our local nonprofit partners, please join us on September 17 from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Be sure to RSVP to Dallas Bragg at dbragg@charlottelaw.edu as soon as possible.

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The Charlotte School of Law has created a new practice ready program designed to assist low income individuals facing eviction. The Homeless Prevention Clinic (HPC) would be a joint venture of the Charlotte School of Law (CSL) and Legal Aid of North Carolina – Charlotte (LANC).
The purpose of the HPC is three fold. First, the HPC will advance Charlotte School of Law’s public service mission pillar by representing low-income tenants in Mecklenburg County both in court and through providing legal advice in order to avoid evictions, for which there is an overwhelming need. In Mecklenburg County, approximately thirty-seven thousand (37,000) small claims actions are filed every year and about ninety-five percent (95%) of those actions appear to be summary ejectment of residential tenants. The vast majority of tenants in these actions are not represented by counsel. In addition, only a small percentage of these cases are appealed to district court (465 appeals in 2011, 577 appeals in 2012, and around 590 appeals in 2013). The local homeless services agencies reported increases of between 21% to 36% in homelessness among families with children each year from 2009 to 2013.

The LANC-Charlotte office receives around 20 to 40 new calls per day from tenants threatened with eviction. Currently, the LANC-Charlotte office only has three full-time staff attorneys, one paralegal, and a part-time call screener to handle eviction cases. Due to the large volume of calls and limited resources available to LANC, the LANC-Charlotte office is sometimes forced to close intake for tenants in conventional housing and only accept calls from tenants who receive federal rent subsidies. Tenants who receive a rent subsidy are far more likely to become homeless when facing an eviction because being evicted will almost always result in those tenants also being terminated from the subsidy program that they rely on to pay their rent.

Second, the HPC will assist Charlotte School of Law’s commitment to producing practice ready, public interest law students by creating a rigorous academic experience that will teach them the substantive and procedural rules of landlord-tenant laws; teach them about the federally subsidized housing programs; and expose students to interviewing skills, case analysis, evidentiary strategy, negotiation, trial preparation, and representation of clients in administrative hearings and trials.

Third, the HPC will provide CSL the opportunity to develop an extensive and long-lasting partnership with LANC that will expand opportunities for both organizations to advance meaningful change in the community for low/no income tenants.

CSL has hired Brian O’Shaughnessy to teach and supervise the HPC students which began in the fall semester of 2015. Prior to joining CSL, Professor O’Shaughnessy served as a Staff Attorney for 4 years at the Winston-Salem office of Legal Aid, where he frequently represented low-income tenants in administrative hearings, small claims and district court, negotiated settlement agreements with landlords, and conducted community outreach on landlord-tenant issues. He also served a one-year fellowship in the Gastonia office of Legal Aid following his graduation from the Norman Adrian Wiggins School of Law at Campbell University in 2010, where he also practiced landlord-tenant law. While in law school he participated in the Elder Law Clinic. “I benefited greatly from my Clinic experience while in law school, and I look forward to working with the Clinic students to not only help them develop their litigation skills in furtherance of CSL’s commitment to producing practice ready lawyers, but also to share my passion for helping the most vulnerable members of our community.”

Professors Cabagnot, Matthews, and Nunez will present “Taking a Look under the Hood – A Race and Law Scholar Helps our Clinics Fine Tune our Cultural Competence Training” at the upcoming Southern Clinical Conference in Memphis, Tennessee on October 23, 2014. The theme of this year’s Southern Clinical Conference is “Confronting Issues of Race and Diversity in Clinical Legal Education.” Their presentation represents the Charlotte School of Law’s dedication to engaging issues of race and diversity in clinical legal education. While clinicians have talked to each other about how to address these issues, this presentation will bring the insights of Professor Matthews, a race and law researcher/scholar to bear upon the workings of our clinical program. After reviewing Professor Cabagnot and Nunez’s clinical programs, Professor Matthews will provide her findings and collaborate with our clinical faculty to enhance our program’s ability to confront issues of race, diversity and privilege in the law school clinical atmosphere.

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The Charlotte School of Law, an ABA-accredited law school, invites applications for a full-time, clinical fellow teaching position, beginning August 1, 2015, in the Charlotte School of Law Civil Rights Clinic (CRC). The CRC provides opportunities for students to engage in litigation and public policy advocacy concerning a variety of civil rights and public interest issues in a rigorous and well supervised program. The CRC’s recent work focuses on assisting individuals with criminal convictions obtain Certificates of Relief (judicial declarations that a person is rehabilitated) and Ban the Box policy advocacy, both in the public and private sector. The CRC is a national award winning clinic that is part of Charlotte School of Law’s diverse clinical and experiential education opportunities. Potential applicants can read about the CRC’s work at www.cslcivilrights.com.

Applicants must have a JD degree from an ABA-accredited law school and be currently licensed and engaged in the practice of law for the past two years in North Carolina. Preference will be given to applicants who have a desire to pursue a clinical teaching career, strong academic records and writing ability, a demonstrated commitment to public interest law, and potential success as teacher. Salary is commensurate with experience. Charlotte School of Law offers a full benefits package. For more information about Charlotte School of Law, please visit www.charlottelaw.edu . The successful candidate will have a one year appointment, renewable for a second, depending on performance.

Application Instructions:

To submit a job application for this opening, please visit www.charlottelaw.edu , select the “About” dropdown, click the “Join Our Team” link, enter 3561 into the Requisition Number field or search by job title (Keywords section), and click the “View Jobs” button. Single click on the job title and click the “Apply” button. Follow application prompts.

Applications should include a resume or curriculum vitae, a cover letter explaining your interest in the position, and contact information for two references. In order to receive priority consideration interested individuals must submit their application by June 22, 2015.

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On May 15, 2015, our very own supervising attorney (and soon-to-be an Associate CSL Dean for Experiential Education!), Jason Huber, and the Clinic were spotlighted in the Charlotte Observer for our work with Charlotte’s Citizens Review Board (CRB). As our faithful readers are probably aware, the CRB has been a long-standing project here at the Clinic.

The Observer shares the story of David Dardon-Strickland who states that his home was illegally searched by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) officers. The charges officers cited him for after the search were eventually dropped, but his allegations of police misconduct were never addressed. Until now. The CRB voted to have the first hearing under the new structure that the Clinic, Professor Huber, and other community leaders advocated for and the City Council adopted.

Professor Huber is quoted: “If we get down the road and we see … the results are still the same, then there may need to be some more changes,” Huber said. “I think it’s important to be patient and let the new system play itself out and then take a hard look at the results.” Congrats to the Clinic and Professor Huber for all of their work on this thus far!

Edith Hinson, CSL Class of May 2015 and Spring 2015 Justice Leaguer, has recently been offered admission to Georgetown University Law Center to pursue her Advanced Law Degree. Edith will matriculate this August, and graduate in May 2016 with her LLM with a concentration in Human Rights. Edith plans to thereafter continue serving the underserved through devoting her practice of law to the areas of indigent criminal defense and humanitarian immigration.

Join clinic member Gabrielle Valentine and administrative law clerk Hannah Davies as they discuss Amendment 782 to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. Hannah Davies is law clerk to the Honorable Judge Reidinger of the Western District of North Carolina.